Communist Party Opposition
Encyclopedia
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
opposition organisation established at the end of 1928 and maintaining its existence until 1939 or 1940. After the rise of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the National Socialist German Workers Party
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
to power in January 1933, the KPO existed only as an illegal and underground organization. The group initially sought to modify, later to replace, the mainstream Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD) headed by Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...
. The KPO was the first national section affiliated to the International Communist Opposition
Right Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
(ICO).
Background
The KPO represented the so-called Right OppositionRight Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
in the KPD in distinction to the Trotskyist or Trotskyist-sympathising Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
and the pro-Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
centre faction. It was led by Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler was a German communist trade unionist, politician, revolutionary activist, and writer. Brandler is best remember as the head of the Communist Party of Germany during the party's ill-fated "March Action" of 1921 and aborted uprising of 1923, for which he was held responsible by...
and August Thalheimer
August Thalheimer
August Thalheimer was a German Marxist activist and theoretician.-Early years:August Thalheimer was born 18 March 1884 in Affaltrach, now called Obersulm, Württemberg, Germany.-Political career:...
who had led the KPD between 1921 and 1923. They were expelled from the KPD after organising a meeting to combat what they saw as corruption in their party after its central leader Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...
defended a protege, John Wittorf, from charges of theft
Wittorf affair
The Wittorf affair was an embezzlement scandal in Germany in 1928. John Wittorf, an official of the Communist Party , was a close friend and protégé of party chairman Ernst Thälmann. Thälmann tried to cover up the embezzlement, for which he was ousted from the central committee...
despite his guilt. Thälmann was deposed by the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
only to be reinstated by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
through the agency of the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
.
The secretary of the Hamburg organization of the KPD was found to have embezzled 2,000 marks from the party treasury for his own use. When accountants from national party headquarters discovered the crime, they were threatened with expulsion from the party by party leader Thälmann if they exposed the theft. The Comintern got wind of the scandal which lead to a crisis in the German party with the Central Committee acting to remove Thaelmann, with Thaelmann joining in the unanimous vote.
This presented a threat to the faction of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
headed by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, who saw in Thaelmann a reliable ally during a time of bitter factional warfare. As a result, the Presidium of the Comintern countermanded the German Central Committee's action, restoring Thaelmann as secretary.
In October 1928 Brandler returned to Germany against the KPD's wishes. The corruption of Thaelmann's Hamburg organization and its protection by the Stalin faction in Moscow was used as a pretext for Brandler and Thalheimer to issue a call for a meeting of their followers on November 11, 1928.
The Comintern, predictably, reacted with fury. Brandler, Thalheimer, and their associates were bitterly criticized in an open letter from the Comintern on December 19, 1928. Expulsion soon followed, with both Brandler and Thalheimer removed from the Communist Parties of Germany in December 1928 and from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
and the Communist International in January 1929.
Formation
Brandler and Thalheimer gathered their supporters into a new organization called the Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) (KPO), a group which was founded at the December 30, 1928 meeting which had originally prompted the wave of expulsions. The group also launched a new communist opposition journal, Gegen den Strom (Against the Current).Most of those who attended this conference were factional allies of Brandler and Thalheimer from previous years when they had headed the German Communist Party. The major exception was Paul Frölich
Paul Frölich
Paul Frölich was a journalist and left wing political activist who was a founding member of the Communist Party of Germany and founder of the party's paper, Die Rote Fahne. A Communist Party deputy in the Reichstag on two occasions, Frölich was expelled from the Party in 1928, after which he...
, who had been allied with a third, so-called "conciliator" faction which stood between the future KPO and the KPD leadership. Frölich and his partner Rosi Wolfstein, like Brandler and Thalheimer, had been allies and pupils of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
, however.
Throughout 1929 the KPD expelled followers of Brandler and Thalheimer, as well as the "Conciliator faction
Conciliator faction
The Conciliator faction was an opposition group within the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. In East Germany, after World War II, the German word for conciliator, Versöhnler, became a term for anti-marxist political tendencies.- Background :The faction...
", who sought a factional truce between the party's feuding Left and Right. Perhaps 1,000 members of the Communist Party of Germany were affected. These expulsions paralleled similar efforts to purge the Russian Communist Party of followers of Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
, Alexei Rykov
Alexei Rykov
Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician most prominent as Premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924–29 and 1924–30 respectively....
, and Mikhail Tomsky
Mikhail Tomsky
Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky was a factory worker, trade unionist and Bolshevik leader. He was the Soviet leader of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions.Tomsky attempted to form a trade union at his factory in St...
.
The KPO initially conceived of itself as a factional influence group, attempting to change the political line of the Communist Party of Germany rather than a new party in competition with it. The organization held a second conference in November 1929 at which it, in the words of M.N. Roy, "declared unequivocally that between Social Democracy and Communism there is no half-way house." Roy claimed that the KPO had 6,000 dues-paying members and was publishing eight weekly and bi-monthly publications by the fall of 1929, with a combined circulation of 25,000. Brandler was named Secretary of the organization at this time. While the group never met with broad influence or electoral success, it nevertheless became the first as well as one of the most prominent parties to be identified with the so-called "International Right Opposition
Right Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
."
On January 1, 1930, the KPO attempted to expand its influence even further with the launch of a daily newspaper, Arbeiterpolitik. Financial problems led it a reduction of frequency, however, and by 1932 the paper was being issued only once a week.
Despite Roy's protestations that the KPO did not constitute an independent political party, it was not long before it had entered the field with its own candidates for office. It ran its own candidates in the December 7, 1929 provincial election in Thuringia, one of the organization's strongholds, although these garnered only 12,000 votes. In other elections, it supported the slate of candidates of the official Communist Party of Germany, including the candidacy of Ernst Thaelmann for President in the election of March 1932.
The KPO counted approximately 1,000 members after its supporters had been expelled from the KPD, many of them local leaders of the party. In the years that followed they failed to recruit any further adherents from outside the party and gradually decreased in number. The KPO backed the KPD on most public issues but did stand their own candidates in some elections and ran other campaigns. Their members were also active in the existing trade unions, in contrast to the KPD, which launched a policy of forming radical "dual unions" during the so-called Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
between 1929 and 1934.
Drive for a united front against fascism
Brandler and the KPO were strongly in favor of the establishment of a united front against the menace of NazismNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and were particularly critical of the Communist Party's conception that "once the Nazis get into power, then will the united front of the proletariat rise and brush them aside." Instead, the KPO called for the immediate formation of a broad anti-fascist alliance including the Social Democratic-controlled trade union federation, the Social Democrats, Communists, and the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany was a political party in Germany. It was formed by a left-wing party with around 20,000 members which split off from the SPD in the autumn of 1931. In 1931 the remnants of USPD merged into the party, and in 1932 some Communist Party dissenters joined the...
.
Campaigning for a United Front as a small group did not give the KPO more influence with the general public, but the threat of the Nazis did lead to a leftward movement within the Social Democratic Party (SPD). This leftist tendency in the SPD left that party in 1931 and organised themselves as the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany was a political party in Germany. It was formed by a left-wing party with around 20,000 members which split off from the SPD in the autumn of 1931. In 1931 the remnants of USPD merged into the party, and in 1932 some Communist Party dissenters joined the...
(SAPD) which elements within the KPO felt they should join. After an internal struggle in which the majority of the KPO backed Brandler and Thalheimer, a minority led by Frölich and Jakob Walcher refused to accept the decisions of the fourth conference of the KPO, held in January 1932. The leadership replied to this challenge by stating that the breach of discipline implied the minority had excluded itself from the organisation. The minority responded by joining the SAPD.
On August 10, 1932, the KPO weekly Arbeiterpolitik was banned for 13 weeks for violating President Von Hindenburg's emergency decree "against political excesses" by the conservative German government headed by Chancellor Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
. The ban was to take effect immediate, continuing until November 15. The ban, along with similar measures taken against other organs of the left wing press, helped make coordinated action against German ultra-nationalism more difficult.
Following the rise to power of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and his ultra-nationalist National Socialist German Workers Party
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
on January 30, 1933 and the wave of anti-radical repression which ensued, Brandler and most of the KPO leadership fled to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Brandler lived in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
until the beginning of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, where he continued to be involved in communist politics.
Underground period
The KPO was only able to work legally for one more year before the Nazis came to power in January 1933. It was to go underground immediately, in order to avoid persecution as far as possible. They were able to hold a conference in DenmarkDenmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
in April 1934, and maintain a national structure. However, in 1935, the Nazis stepped up the repression of all communist groups, and trials of KPO members were reported in Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
, Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
and elsewhere. The organisation ceased to operate at a national level and was now confined to exile circles and the Saarland
Saarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
. In the Saarland, they were able to function legally for a little longer, due to its status as a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
occupation zone. When a plebiscite was held on the matter of the region being returned to Germany, the KPO called on its supporters to vote for a Räterepublik (Soviet
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
) Saarland, and to oppose unity with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. This was in contrast to the position of the KPD, which supported the Saarland remaining under the control of France.
In exile, with the leadership in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, the KPO continued to publish Gegen den Strom. Politically, it continued the previous line of the KPO and was supportive of the Comintern and of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, its criticisms being reserved for the KPD. This however began to change with the beginning of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and the deepening of the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
s in Russia. A number of KPO militants in exile were to travel to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and fought in the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
that supported the Second Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
; some were to find themselves persecuted by the Stalinists, a fate they shared with militants belonging to the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification
Workers' Party of Marxist Unification
The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification was a Spanish communist political party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil War...
(POUM).
Dissolution
There seems to have been a tendency within the KPO which wanted it to break more clearly from any support of Stalinism, and, in 1939, a Group of International MarxistsInternational Marxist Group (Germany)
The International Marxist Group was a Trotskyist group in West Germany. The GIM served as the German section of the reunified Fourth International....
appeared, after its founders left the ranks of the KPO. This group signed a declaration of independent socialist parties, many associated with the International Workers' Front, which had left the ICO and KPO. From this point on, there is little mention of either the new group or the KPO itself - with the fall of France, the leadership of the KPO had been forced to flee again, and the organisation was effectively dissolved.
Of the leading figures in the KPO, Brandler and Thalheimer were to spend the war exiled in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, where the latter was to perish. Brandler returned to West Germany in 1949 and played a leading role in the Gruppe Arbeiterpolitik, which stood in the tradition of the KPO, but was never able to recover its former influence. Brandler died in 1967, but the group still exists and is based in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
.
See also
- Right OppositionRight OppositionThe Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
- Heinrich BrandlerHeinrich BrandlerHeinrich Brandler was a German communist trade unionist, politician, revolutionary activist, and writer. Brandler is best remember as the head of the Communist Party of Germany during the party's ill-fated "March Action" of 1921 and aborted uprising of 1923, for which he was held responsible by...
- Nikolai BukharinNikolai BukharinNikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
- LovestoneitesIndependent Labor League of AmericaThe Communist Party of the USA , led by former General Secretary of the Communist Party USA Jay Lovestone, was a small oppositionist Communist movement of the 1930s. The organization emerged from a factional fight in the CPUSA in 1929 and unsuccessfully sought to reintegrate with that organization...